South Africa vs India, 1st T20I - Live Cricket Score, Commentary

17:55 Local Time, 15:55 GMT, 21:25 IST: The incessant rain has had the final say and the match has been called off without toss. A dampener to begin the series with! Not what the sell-out crowd and the players hoped for but nature has its own ways! Join us for the second T20I from Gqeberha day after tomorrow. Let’s hope we are greeted with blue skies and we get a full game. Till then, goodbye and cheers!

17:43 Local Time, 15:43 GMT, 21:13 IST: Well, nothing positive to report from Kingsmead. The rain continues! The spectators continue to take refuge under their umbrellas or raincoats. The umpires are seen taking a walk on the ground with their umbrellas in place. The groundstaff is accompanying them. Hopes are fading by the minute!

17:10 Local Time, 15:10 GMT, 20:40 IST: Unfortunately, it's still raining in Durban. Things look gloomy but let's hope for the best!

16:23 Local Time, 14:23 GMT, 19:53 IST: The live visuals don't present a promising picture. The drizzle is steady at present. Let's keep our fingers crossed!

16:10 Local Time, 14:10 GMT, 19:40 IST: The waiting game continues! Looks like it's still drizzling. Just a reminder, we could start losing overs in another 30 minutes.

Gagan: Great opportunity for youngsters of both teams to showcase their talent and capabilities.

15:23 Local Time, 13:23 GMT, 18:53 IST: Looks like it's raining and the covers are in place at the moment. Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope it clears soon and we have some live action soon.. For now, toss is delayed due to rain. We'll start losing overs from 16:40 local time.

Rain has lingered around in Durban but the radar shows that the weather is likely to hold up during the match. Conditions would be overcast and that would be conducive for the pacers. South Africa would want to catch the visitors off guard, making optimum use of the home conditions. It’s going to be a packed house at Kingsmead and it promises to be a thrilling encounter. Toss and team lineups will be announced shortly...

The T20I World Cup in the USA and West Indies is just around 6 months away. Both sides would be eyeing to rectify the chinks in their armours – they only have six T20Is each before the marquee event to do that. Some big names are missing from the home side. The onus would be on the youngsters to rise to the occasion. Perhaps, they can take a leaf out of India’s books as their youngsters played some fearless cricket in this format. Markram has been in terrific form with the bat of late. The hosts would want him to lead from the front. For India, the likes of Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Shubman Gill and Mohammed Siraj are back in the mix after being rested against Australia.

15:10 Local Time, 13:10 GMT, 18:40 IST: Hello and a warm welcome to our live coverage of the first match of the 3-match T20I series between India and South Africa at Durban. It’s summer time in South Africa and it’s the beginning of a new dawn for both sides. The Proteas lost in the semi-final against Australia in the World Cup around a month back - it was another tough pill to swallow for them after having performed brilliantly in the round-robin stage. The Men in Blue, too, had their hopes shattered after they faltered big time in the finals in front of the Aussies. The fact that India won the T20I series 4-1 against Australia which took place just after the World Cup would have helped them to recoup a bit. However, the heartbreak of losing a World Cup does hit differently. For Proteas, they now enter into the limelight once again after the World Cup. It presents them an opportunity to make new beginnings.

Preview by Telford Vice

Can teams move past the blow of failing to win an ODI World Cup with success in mere T20Is? India's men's side have offered an answer to that question by claiming four victories in the five T20Is they played against Australia in the past not quite three weeks.

That followed the Australians finding a way to humble hitherto unbeaten India in the ODI World final in Ahmedabad on November 19. South Africa, who lost their semifinal against the Aussies at Eden Gardens three days earlier and haven't played since, will start rebuilding on Sunday when Kingsmead hosts the first of three T20Is against India.

If this seems an abjectly modest way to reenter the fray, remember that both teams have only six T20Is to sort themselves out before another World Cup - the T20I version - looms in the Caribbean in June. If that seems a stretch of credulity across time, space and formats, consider that several members of South Africa's XI for semifinal, and of India's selection for the final, are in the current squads.

One of the South Africans is Gerald Coetzee, who sent down eight overs unchanged at the cost of 32 runs and was rewarded with the wickets of Steven Smith and Josh Inglis. At the end, his energy spent - even 23-year-olds aren't immune to exhaustion - and his body cramping, he melted into a puddle of tears and sweat in David Miller's brotherly embrace. How had Coetzee bounced back from bowling his heart out, and his lungs, in his preparation for the coming series?

"The world saw that he gave his all and some more," Aiden Markram said. "It would have been tough for him to deal with - it was tough for everyone - but he has been good the last few days. He is back up for it and it's been good to see. He loves bowling, he loves performing and he loves competing. For him, it's a new series and he's looking forward to what he can do for us."

Had the Indians dealt with the shock of losing a game everyone, including millions of their compatriots, thought they would win? "It was a disappointment that will be difficult to move on from, but the show must go on," Suryakumar Yadav said. "We had a nice T20I series against Australia. It was a different format, but we really enjoyed it and it was a big boost for the boys who came in and won that series for us."

Still, a cruelty lingers around this scenario, as it does around Markram, Heinrich Klaasen, Miller, Marco Jansen, Keshav Maharaj, Tabraiz Shamsi, Shubman Gill, Shreyas Iyer, Ravindra Jadeja, Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav and Mohammed Siraj - the other players in the T20I squads who featured in their teams' last matches at the World Cup.

As much as it might appear otherwise, high-calibre cricketers are as human as the rest of us. How, exactly, do you lift yourself from the floor so soon after being flattened while a global audience looked on? Perhaps we should be quietly grateful and relieved that, unlike big-name cricketers, we usually have the privilege of enduring our failures in private.

When: December 10, 2023; 4pm Local Time (7.30pm IST)

Where: Kingsmead, Durban

What to expect: A slowish but fair surface, which could be enlivened by the 15 millimetres of rain that has been forecast for a stormy morning. Anticipate, also, a farewell for Wilson Ngobese, who joined Kingsmead's groundstaff in 1975 and has been the head curator since 1999. This will be Ngobese's last international pitch.

Team news:

South Africa:

Lungi Ngidi's withdrawal with a sprained ankle on Friday further erodes the experience in a fast bowling department that is already without the rested Kagiso Rabada and the injured Anrich Nortje. The batting lineup is without Quinton de Kock and Rassie van der Dussen.

Possible XI: Reeza Hendricks, Matthew Breetzke, Tristan Stubbs, Aiden Markram (capt), Heinrich Klaasen, David Miller, Andile Phehlukwayo, Keshav Maharaj, Gerald Coetzee, Nandre Burger, Tabraiz Shamsi

India:

This game - and the series - sees the return of some of India's regulars who took a break during the T20Is against Australia that came right after the ODI World Cup. Axar Patel, who played against Australia, isn't part of the T20I squad now, making way for Ravindra Jadeja's straightforward return.

Possible XI: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav (capt), Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja, Deepak Chahar, Ravi Bishnoi, Mohammed Siraj, Arshdeep Singh

What they said:

"You'd like to know them on a deeper level before going into the series with them. We've had a few good days together trying to get to know them and understanding what makes them tick. The nature of cricket is that series come thick and fast and there'll be times when new guys are in and they are going to have to find their feet quickly, and we are going to do our best to help them settle down and be as relaxed as they can be in the environment. It's a tricky one but the group we have here is a great bunch of guys." - Aiden Markram on captaining the relative strangers in his team.

"The guys I'm watching in T20 cricket right now are very expressive. They don't have a lot of fear of failure. Whatever happens - if they do well or if they don't get runs on that given day - their attitude remains the same on and off the field. That balance is really important when you play this sport." - Suryakumar Yadav on the irresistible impetuousness of T20's younger players.

Squads:

South Africa Squad: Reeza Hendricks, Matthew Breetzke, Tristan Stubbs, Aiden Markram(c), Heinrich Klaasen(w), David Miller, Andile Phehlukwayo, Keshav Maharaj, Gerald Coetzee, Nandre Burger, Tabraiz Shamsi, Ottniel Baartman, Marco Jansen, Donovan Ferreira, Lizaad Williams

India Squad: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav(c), Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma(w), Ravindra Jadeja, Deepak Chahar, Ravi Bishnoi, Mohammed Siraj, Arshdeep Singh, Ishan Kishan, Mukesh Kumar, Washington Sundar, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Tilak Varma, Kuldeep Yadav